...There has been a recurring theme in the literature we have read. The theme has been showing African-Americans as oppressed people. They faced bouts of racism and hardships. In Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, and Alice Walker’s Everyday Use; the protagonists each face different trials and tribulations in their life. Clay Williams, Walter Lee Younger and Mama are from different times in history, but they faced similar adversities. In Dutchman by Amiri Baraka, the main character Clay Williams meets Lula. Clay is described as a well-dressed, young intellectual African American man. While Lula is described as a sexual attractive, older white woman. Lula taunts Clay and attacks his the doubts he has about his social...
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...21 Review on place of rage A Place Of Rage is a documentary focused on two African American women both June Jordan and Angela Davis, who were civil rights activists both in the 60’s and 70’s. The film focuses on the struggles, hopes, and hardships of what life was like back then in the 60’s and 70’s. It was tough for them because racism played a strong role during that time period. They would refuse service’s to blacks for instance restrooms would not be allowed, if you wanted water they would refuse to give it to you it was a terrible time. The Basic needs were not gained they had to be fought to gain them. The African American’s couldn’t take it anymore and soon enough the Black Panther party was born. The Black Panther party said that it would defend the black community and it would not put up with police crime. That brought so many blacks together and that’s when Angela Davis and June Jordan join the Black Panther party. Alice walker says that”people of any color really have to know there history and past because they don’t want to repeat it. They want to build on it better than what there ancestors had if it can be. One way of making sure it is better is to know all the bad things that you don’t want to do over”. June Jordan said that things changed because we made them change. As an African American male I Through the struggles and hardships as we African American man and women face, we are in this world and it is a vine of a broken leave the we will prevail into...
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...Hispanic, 12.4% African American, 5.2% Asian, and 0.7% Native American. The United States is a melting pot . Everyone has different religions, values, and beliefs. Our society helps shape these values. Even though our society changes over time, three values remain prominent. In today’s young American: hard-work, perseverance, and passion serve to make the United States the great nation that it is. First, lets bring attention to the hard-work every American goes through. Americans face hardships everyday, like unemployment, debt, and war. Americans have always had hardships, but Americans always overcome challenges. In Letters from an American Farmer: Letter III - What is an American by De Crevecoeur says, “We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself…”...
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...The African American community has had significant hardships brought to them over many years in the United States. They were put through the terrible time period in which slavery and the violent treatment of the community was vibrant. African Americans have been segregated, oppressed, bullied, killed, lynched, and many other terrible things that has provided them an extremely unfair life. The African American community has had a long history of racism, oppression, and not having the same rights and access to public space as others have; they have had an enormous amounts of successes overcoming the oppression and gaining the rights to public space, but most importantly overcoming segregation in the United States education system. First and...
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...to be a fusion of nationalities, cultures, and ethnicities. What the play failed to mention was that although some nationalities were indeed melting together, American’s that were of different races were being excluded. The physical differences in races, such as African Americans, had caused them to be excluded from reaping the benefits of all that America had to offer. The worst part about all of this is that the people being excluded from “The Melting Pot” were decedents of individuals who did not come to this country by choice. Instead they were brought to this country through kidnapping. Flash forward a hundred years to Nov. 24th, 2008. America elects its first African American president Barack Obama. Article after article published around this time had headlines reading, “Barack Obama: The End of Racism in America.” We finally did it! Racism in America was able to be totally eradicated through the election of an African American as our nation’s president. If only it was that easy. Now in 2014, eight years after the election of our nation’s first African American president, our country is experiencing one of the biggest racial unrests since the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. It has been 149 years since the end of slavery, 46 years since the end of the civil rights movement, and 8 years since America elected it’s first African American president. How can it be possible that Americans still face inequality due to their race? The reason is...
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...Comparative Analysis of Two Texts Preserving Cultural Heritage- Only the Truth Can Set Them Free Individual heritage can and does shape generations to come. Americans, for the most part, accept this as an important and necessary ingredient in the fabric which sets us apart from other cultures in the world. It is a heritage that is uniquely ours. Cultural traditions and stories provide a basis upon which generations to come can connect to all the factors that have shaped how they are living today. The next generation learns from the last and ancestral stories are repeated, passed down and incorporated into the fabric of the uniqueness of individuals within a culture. Within the vast boundaries of our nation there are unique and geographical cultures that have succeeded in surviving despite the odds and then there are the stories of those who didn’t succeed. Both cultures build upon bonding born from the hardship of working the soil in rural America, but only one of these cultures has found a way to liberate its people and share the truths associated with those struggles. Maya Angelou speaks to the African American Culture in her work “Reclaiming our Home Place”. She captures the tragic yet rich history of the America’s south and how celebrating this history as a culture has set the once enslaved African American free. (Angelou) Further to the northwest, based in the rural by-ways of America is the story of the people who claimed the plains as their heritage as told by Kathleen...
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...College Abstract In every society there are certain minorities that struggle with certain parts of living in a complex society and being dominated by the superior. While it took many people lives of innocent and people of fame to just get some rights. African Americans struggled from the moment they arrived here as slaves to obtaining simple civil laws they deserved. At one point slavery in america was functional but soon it began violating the norms of society. Even with the fight and the push for rights for African American there is always that gap of equality and some areas the struggle still exist. The stories of African Americans are all in some way related to each other due to the nature in which they were assimilated into. They were treated as property at one point in time and nothing else yet they still tried to keep a “family” atmosphere. African Americans have made their way to freedom, but have been left with a heavy burden of their ancestor’s slavery. Would they ever be seen as anything but slaves brought unwilling from Africa to the United States to be enslaved and be servants to the White Man? Those questions can be answered by looking at the history of African Americans and how they have become great leaders in this country like our President. Today many may say we don't have slavery in some point that statement is true but to some extent it it is not. Just take into consideration Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois two amazing people...
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...The American Dream is something numerous people seek, whether they are currently living in America or aspire to do so. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck mainly follows two men, George Milton and Lennie Smalls, as they try to fulfill their version of the American Dream. George and Lennie’s dream is to own a piece of land where they can build a shack and have many bunnies and other animals. Throughout the story, the men face many hardships such as finding a place to work and staying out of trouble. Not only does the book follow George and Lennie’s search for the American Dream, Of Mice and Men explores the effects of systemic oppression on women, African Americans, and people with disabilities. Women are treated poorly in the book. One woman...
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...Famous Thinkers Paper We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome someday. These legendary words have been the foundation for people of color since the long nights of captivity, slavery. Several prominent activists have made immense strides in making those words a reality. Such individuals like James H. Cone and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. James H. Cone, an advocate affectionately known for black liberation theology, a theology grounded in the experience of African Americans, and related to other Christian liberation theologies. James H. Cone approach provided a realistic snap shot of a new way to articulate the distinctiveness of theology in the Black Church. Frustrated and outraged at the White Church of playing a significant role in the oppression and racism of black people. Cone believed that the Black Church is a powerful force [in his life] and did not do enough in regard to racism among African Americans. Cone exploited scriptures, slave spirituals, blues, and other prominent African American thinkers such as David Walker, Henry McNeal Turner, and W.E.B. DuBois to help shape his theology. Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King also influenced his theology. Cone formulates a theology of liberation from within the context of the Black experience of oppression, interpreting the central kernel of the Gospels as Jesus' identification with the poor, oppressed, and...
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...The African American Literature unit shares the stories of many peoples lives through novels, poetry, essays, articles, and films. Many of these people were put in a rough situation because of of how they started out in life. many of them come from poverty which can restrict the opportunities they have in life. Economics play a key role in the African American literature as it effects the lives of many people. This was found in pieces of literature such as the article "How Poverty and Racism Persist in Mississippi", the novel The Water is Wide, and the poem "Note on Commercial Theater". First, the article "How Poverty and Racism Persists in Mississippi" shares the story of the author and his life as a child growing up in poverty. He tells about the struggles he went through such as only eating beans for days on end and constantly being hungry. As a child that just seemed ordinary to him as he didn't know anything else. As he is now grown up and a writer for The Atlantic, he knows different and is able to recognize the position of what he was in. Not only did he live that life, but many others did as well. Thirty two percent of African Americans in Mississippi live in poverty which is much higher than the national average....
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...Marcos Reyes Reyes Page.1 Prof. De Los Reyes ENG 112 December 10th 2011 Maya Angelou is a well-known American author, especially during the times of the civil rights movement which she was an activist. Maya had a long career, which includes different works from poetry, plays, screenplays for television and film, directing, acting, and public speaking. She is a profound writer of poetry. Her style of writing is geared for self-empowerment. To rise over all odds and to take pride in who you really are. She shows her honesty and emotions. Mostly her experiences that she went through in life or read about. Most of her works flow and rhyme well and usually very inspiring. Some of her poems are even considered autobiographical kind of poems. The style of Maya Angelou can range from complex symbolical ideas to easy, straightforward concepts. Her style is like a story. The vocabulary is usually easy to understand, and not too complicated. Her works are not always conventional either. (Study World 1) Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis. She was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She came from a broken home. Angelou was raped at eight, and was an unwed Reyes Page. 2 mother at 16 years old (Williams 1). Angelou...
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...The Industrialization mark major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. The changes improve some of the daily living of America people. The Industrialization brought on both negative and position effect on American life. Industrialization was very beneficial to American business owner. The era of the Big business began entrepreneur in search of profits this turn their business into massive corporations. They was large and powerful. The control of the market allowed them to set their own price fro products as high or low as they wanted to be. This brought on the Union for smaller business to protect what they had built. In the early years of the Industrialization, the government maintain of hands-off attitude toward big businesses. Big business was growing but the government want to stay away from free market. They felt like if the government interfere in that the free unregulated markets led to competition. Years later beginning to show that there was no free market. By this time corporations was big and powerful that they took over the markets. These corporations had almost brought out all the small businesses. This hurt mostly the farmers. The Industrialization Revolution affected farming and manufacturing led to a increase in the wealth and prosperity of countries. They improved the way of planting and harvesting crops, breeding, and rearing animals and fertilizing the land to increase productivity. Steam powered farm machine...
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...Tekela Genous October 28, 2009 ENG 435 Langston Hughes “Mother to Son” is written entirely from a weary mother’s point-of-view and presents inspiration, themes, and imagery concerning the appearance and the reality of the poem. Every mother wants to see her child be successful in life through the hardships and the good times. The poem was written from a mother to her young son demonstrating the love and concern a mother has for her son and educating him on how life may be. The overall message is to never give up, although life is hard, one can never give up no matter what your struggles are, keep pushing forward. This poem implies that experience can teach life lessons, which the mother has been through time after time. She explains to her son in a well spoken way that things may go wrong, don’t get content, move forward and never give up. This poem reminds me of a novel named Push, written by Sapphire in 1996, it illustrates the conditions of living in Harlem in the 1980’s and the suffering of a girl, Claireece Precious Jones, who experienced sexual harassment, being committed twice by her own father, having two children by him, but never giving up. The first couple of stanzas show that the son may have asked his mother a question, because she starts with, "Well, son, I'll tell you." The mother then goes on and uses the metaphor “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair,” which can symbolize her spiritual pursue towards Christ or telling her son that life is...
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...Throughout current times we have struggled to leave race behind and many of those problems have to do with those who do not understand the meaning of equality. However, they are those who with superior power and are that small percent of people who shift our current and past living style of teaching and learning. With that said, I believe school in the 1950s were sagerted at a deliberate speed, for instance, “Because oppositions were fierce, those who fought for integration faced tremendous hardships.” Meaning, those who stood up for what they believe was right towards their children's education where in dangering there own well being and statues. While schools were later on forced to let African Americans into there all white schools, these...
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...underlying idea concrete. That’s how the theme is created. In other words, the theme in a story is a representation of the idea of the story. (Clugston 2110). This paper will compare and contrast the theme of the stories Country Lovers and The Welcome Table. Discrimination and racism is always an issue. Their backgrounds both had love, racism, rejection, hardship, and death. In the short stories “Country Lovers“, by Nadine Gordimer and “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker, they both talk about racism and discrimination of some form. It is not a particularly hidden message in either of these stories, but the two of them approach it from slightly different angles. The main character in each of the stories is a protagonist black female who both struggle with trying to be accepted in society due to the color of their skin. Where there is racism and discrimination of all kind around us, it is more pronounced in these two stories. Both stories express the determination of two women to survive through all adversity. The authors speak of the hardship these women had to face and suffer and understanding the fear, struggle and hardship that women of color went through during this time. They are stories about black women in the past dealing with racism and love. Both stories touched me and made me rethink about all the things I take for granted that my ancestors did not have the privilege of experiencing and the things they had to endure. Racism can be subtle or overt and in your...
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